WELTbewusst – the somewhat different city tour

On 26.10, a group of roughly thirty people set off together on a somewhat different city tour through Würzburg. For this alternative city tour is not about historical sights, but about globalisation and sustainable consumption.
The participants learn how their shopping behaviour is connected to ecological and social abuses in other regions of the world and how each individual can exert a positive influence through conscious consumption. Following the motto: "Take action instead of simply accepting things; look more closely instead of comfortably sitting back" the volunteer city tour team aims to achieve greater awareness of global connections, justice and personal responsibility during the tours, and to encourage people through positive examples and suggestions for action to adopt more sustainable consumption behaviour. The tours in Würzburg are part of the nationwide project "WELTbewusst", which is supported by BUNDjugend, the youth organisation of the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation.

Together with the ESG working group "ÖKOmenisch Welt FAIRändern" and three city guides from WELTbewusst, we set off from the World Shop on Plattnerstraße into Würzburg city centre. The first station near the street food stand "Happy Street Kitchen" dealt with the topic of "meat consumption". After an introduction with images of monocultures in the rainforest area, there was a short story about different people and their relationship to the topic of meat: Hans Hungry, who wants to eat meat at least twice a day, a smallholder farmer who is forced by large corporations to move to the city, an angry environmental activist and a very satisfied Monsanto employee constantly advertising (a seed and agrochemical corporation, known among other things from the current debate about a ban on the herbicide "glyphosate").

After all these short stories were presented by the various participants, we moved into a discussion in which we considered together how much meat consumption has an influence everywhere: not only in the clearing of rainforests for soya cultivation, but also in health problems of people living and working there, caused by direct or indirect contact with pesticides. In addition, the declining biodiversity through large monocultures and the dependence of smallholder farmers on seed manufacturers like Monsanto.

However, the aim of this city tour was also to highlight the positive things and alternatives, so at this station at the end, alongside many tips on where to find good vegetarian food, there were of course also opportunities to get many delicious and naturally regional products yourself, such as through a fruit and vegetable box from Solidarity Agriculture, or SolaWi for short, to which you transfer a sum each month and in return receive a box with the currently regionally grown products every week.

Station Two took us to "Schrauben-Sepp", a tool and hardware shop somewhat hidden away in Bronnbachergasse. Thematically fitting, it was about technical questions and the topic of "repair instead of throwing away".
Since nowadays practically everyone has a mobile phone, the opening questions were: Who has had more than three mobile phones in their life? And how many do you still have lying around in drawers at home? After everyone had thought about it, the facts came: In April 2016, around 49 million people in Germany used a smartphone – not to mention other mobile phones – and on average, people in Germany have up to three more mobile phones lying around in drawers somewhere.

With these figures in mind, we now thought about what (fair) alternatives or solutions there are in the technology sector. Surprisingly, there are already quite a few things you can do: namely, not simply throw old devices away or let them rot in a drawer, but dispose of them properly. Here in Würzburg, for example, you can hand in your old electronic devices at the World Shop or the environmental station on Zeller Straße. Especially with electrical appliances, recycling is a much-discussed topic because of resource scarcity in rare earths, environmental and human rights problems in mining and disposal sites in developing countries. Above all, the fact that people, including children, usually work there without protection to extract precious metals and are thus constantly exposed to toxic chemicals shows that this is not only harmful to their health but also to the entire environment.

This led us on to the next point, namely the reuse or repair of electrical appliances. Nowadays, most devices are constructed in such a way that it is difficult or even impossible to replace defective individual parts yourself, either because you cannot get spare parts anywhere or because it is not possible for you to disassemble the devices in such a way that you can put them back together later.

More sustainable products in this area are offered, for example, by manufacturers "Fairphone" and "Shiftphone". Both companies try to avoid so-called conflict minerals (for example, metals from war zones) when building their devices and design them in such a way that you can replace spare parts yourself. For this, these manufacturers also provide videos with repair instructions. On the other hand, if you are looking for a new computer mouse, you can use the fair alternative NagerIT, which lists the entire supply chain – as far as it is known – on their homepage and marks with colours where working conditions are already good, where they are still under negotiation, where conditions are unfortunately still poor and which factories and mines they have already visited themselves. This way, as a buyer, you can understand how many individual parts your mouse consists of and where each part comes from.

The third and final station took us to the Nähcafé Edeltraud on Grabengasse.
Here everything revolved around the topic of clothing. As an alternative to buying new, it was suggested to obtain clothing items "second hand" at flea markets or to refresh your wardrobe at the increasingly popular clothing exchanges.
But where can you get new clothing items in Würzburg that have been produced fairly and sustainably? There is quite a lot, which I personally was not entirely aware of before: The World Shop of course has a range of clothing items and accessories that have been produced under high social and environmental standards, but besides that there are also other shops, such as Another love (Häfnergasse) and the Naturkaufhaus – Body & Nature (Rückermainstraße), which are also both in the city centre and offer sustainably produced fashion. And then of course the alternative we were just standing in front of: the sewing café, where you have the opportunity to sew clothing items yourself or make old things "new" again.

The discussion then continued over the various sustainability standards for textiles. For example, the FairWear Foundation, whose logo, a red coat hanger with the inscription "FairWear", can also be found, for example, in clothes by VauDe, Jack Wolfskin or Waschbär. Textile companies that are members of the FairWear Foundation must ensure that there is no discrimination in the workplace and no child labour, workers are allowed to form unions, working conditions are safe and that there are regulated working hours, contracts and wage payments. In return, they are allowed to advertise with the seal on their clothing items.

A seal that is primarily focused on environmental aspects is the Global Organic Textile Standard, or GOTS for short. Here the requirement is for at least 70 per cent biologically produced natural fibres in the product. Chemical additives are only permitted if they meet environmental and toxicological criteria. In addition, social "minimum standards" must be met in the facilities.

Now we came to the question of why you need such seals at all and should support them. The clear answer: with conventionally produced clothing items, manufacturing conditions are usually catastrophic, people are exposed to toxic chemicals and work at a fast pace in excessively long working shifts. Cotton cultivation takes place almost exclusively in huge monocultures and masses of water and pesticides must be used for production and further processing. Besides cotton, there are less environmentally damaging alternatives such as hemp or linen, from which clothing items can be made.

So our city tour ended after roughly two hours, in which we learned a lot and picked up new ideas, back in front of the World Shop.

Selma Mezger